Site Mobile Navigation

HOCKEY; Slumping Rangers Lose Injured Kamensky for 2 Weeks

If the Rangers score a goal tonight for the first time in four games, they will have to do it without Valery Kamensky.

The team announced yesterday that Kamensky, a 33-year-old left wing, would be sidelined for two weeks to rest his right forearm. Kamensky, who has missed six games because of a stress fracture, has scored just one goal but he hasn't been the only culprit in a teamwide offensive rut.

The Rangers have scored 21 goals in 12 games and will begin a tough stretch tonight in Montreal in which they will play nine of their next 12 games on the road.

The Rangers, losers of four straight games, signed Kamensky to a five-year, $21 million contract in the off season in the hopes that he and the other aging veterans -- Theo Fleury and Tim Taylor -- might ignite an offense that has been dormant for two-plus seasons.

Taylor, 30, played just 49 games for Boston last season, missing 32 games with an ankle injury and another with an injured groin. This season he has been ailing since the first day of training camp, when he had an appendectomy in Burlington, Vt. Since then, Taylor has had a concussion and a foot injury, and he underwent surgery to remove a splinter from his left palm.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

Kamensky's injury has lingered for nearly a year. On March 14, Kamensky broke his right forearm, the result of a vicious slash by Kirk Maltby. Though Kamensky missed the last 15 games of last year's regular season and the first 9 games of the playoffs, he eventually returned for the latter part of Colorado's post-season run. He has not been right since.

Is Kamensky damaged goods, the result of his opting to have a steel plate inserted, which Colorado team doctors advised against last spring? Kamensky, after all, realized he was a pending free agent. He and Colorado Coach Bob Hartley's relationship had deteriorated to the point where Kamensky was getting little playing time before he was hurt. And there are those who believe that Kamensky did everything he could to heal as soon as possible so he could play before the playoffs ended.

The Rangers were not aware of the dispute between Kamensky and the Avalanche when they signed him over the off season. But Kamensky also passed his physicals. And Neil Smith, the Rangers' president, said Thursday: ''Dr. Tony Maddalo told me yesterday: 'There is nothing on these X-rays. If I had seen them the day before you signed him, where I would have told you don't sign him. It's the exact same break as Niklas Sundstrom had.' '' Sundstrom's forearm was broken by a John MacLean slash in the second round of the 1997 playoffs, when Sundstrom was with the Rangers and MacLean, who is a Ranger, played for the Devils.

''Unfortunately, the guy in Edmonton fell on one of his screws,'' Smith said, referring to Roman Hamrlik, who checked Kamensky on the final shift of overtime in the Rangers' season-opening 1-1 tie.

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports,
and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 1999, on Page D00002 of the National edition with the headline: HOCKEY; Slumping Rangers Lose Injured Kamensky for 2 Weeks. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe